This thesis sheds light on the main aspects of economic inequality in the Iraqi Kurdistan. The main objective of this journey is to determine the reasons for the growing inequality in the period under study (2004-2010) in Iraqi Kurdistan, hoping to reach some conclusions which pave the way to researching it. Within this long journey, it has been argued that inequality is firstly inherited. Families have left different stores of abilities and skills to their children. However, this is not the only type of inheritance inequality. Part of the inheritance inequality has been caused by the nature of the economy and the political system, which have dominated in Iraq and Kurdistan during the last three decades. In the past, government intervention and massive regulation have been responsible for corruption and expanding inequality as a consequence, left another period of chaos. After removing Saddam, the political system has shifted to a free market, but without bringing the promised fruits for people. Corruption has a hand in expanding distances between individuals, social groups, and geographical areas. Though elements of corruption can be seen through distributing national incomes, an evaluation for the public policies tells us that even in the absence of corruption, inequality can be expanding. The culture of the labour market does not let the individuals perform well. It does not offer equal opportunities for two agents of the same age who hold the same certification. The traditional division of labour, between the market and the home, can still be observing. This division has made two types of market: the labour market and the marriage market. Women are socially encouraged to spend their energy and time on collecting the abilities that are necessary to make a good choice in the marriage market. The skills of the marriage market are clear: to be an honoured wife, who has had no previous relations with men and able to prepare food and take care of their children. Nevertheless, when they enter the labour market, they see another division: some jobs are for men, others for women. The official surveys, done by international organizations in accordance with the Ministry of Planning of both Iraq and Kurdistan, in addition to the two surveys conducted by the researcher, show that there has been a huge gap between urban and rural areas as well.

After a general introduction to the problems of regional imbalance, this paper proceeds to an analysis of the background and causes of regional economic inequalities in Yugoslavia. Demographic factors are outlined with reference to Yugoslav statistical sources, and the policies being adopted for those areas defined as being in need of special assistance are examined. The author concludes by indicating some lessons to be drawn from Yugoslavia's experience of migration and especially of its workers abroad.

The following paper assesses a statistical relationship between Economic Inequality and Voting Participation among a sizable amount of nations across the world representing all continents. With an deductive approach, three theoretical standpoints of interest are presented: one that describes a negative, another inconclusive, and one with a positive relationship between the variables of interest. Through panel data analysis the study finds support in favour of a negative relationship in that as economic inequality rises, voting participation in parliamentary elections decreases.

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Measures of American inequality offer sparse coverage of subnational units and rely on surveys of self-reported family and household incomes. This dissertation details the development of new inequality datasets at the county, state, and national levels from alternative lenses: sector wages; industry earnings; and average incomes. Sector and industry data are particularly rich, detailed, consistent, and reliable. These new metrics from underutilized data sources contribute to debates over the lived effects of inequality. American economic inequality concentrates in some places more than others, arising from different causes. This dissertation considers ecological associations between inequality, voter turnout, and election outcomes at the state and county levels and multilevel models of individual participation and candidate preference, with voters nested within their state contexts. Aggregate voter turnout has been lower in states with higher levels of income inequality for the last several presidential elections, though this relationship did not strengthen with rising inequality. Likewise, some inequalities have strong associations with state- and county-level presidential election outcomes in certain years, but the patterns are irregular. Multilevel models of voters in states do not indicate a strong relationship among inequality per se and individual behavior. / text

This study aims at investigating how economic inequality affects the possibilities for successful water cooperation between neighboring states sharing a transboundary watershed. As of 2019, researchers have concluded that there are 310 international river basins affecting 150 countries and 52 percent of the world’s population. Drawing on theories from research on cross-border cooperation and openness focusing on the relative attributes of bordering states, the hypothesis is that the more economically equal two bordering states are, the more they will cooperate regarding their shared waters, while the total economic development of the dyad will also have a positive effect on transboundary water cooperation. Initial regression analyses show no effect of economic inequality in a dyad on its transboundary water cooperation, while the effect of the accumulated economic development is significant. However, after including control variables on joint democracy, cultural similarities, conflict history, quality of government and region in the model, economic inequality is shown to have a statistically significant effect on transboundary water cooperation. Contrary to the predictions, this correlation is positive, which means that economic inequality between riparian states actually enhances cooperation in this study. One possible explanation may be the power imbalance economic inequality creates, which might allow the economically more powerful state to dictate the terms and impose cooperative arrangements on the weaker state that serve its own interests.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Rising economic inequality has become a widespread trend and concern in recent decades. Economic inequality is often associated with pernicious consequences such as a decrease in individual health and social cohesion and an increase in political conflicts. Does economic inequality have a negative association with prosocial behavior, like many other aspects of inequality? To answer this question, this dissertation investigates the relationship between economic inequality and prosocial behavior, particularly charitable giving, by conducting three empirical studies. The first study is a meta-analysis on the overall relationship between economic inequality and prosocial behavior. Results from 192 effect sizes in 100 studies show that there is a general small, negative relationship between economic inequality and different forms of prosocial behavior. Moderator tests demonstrate that social context, the operationalization of prosocial behavior, the operationalization of economic inequality, and average age of participants significantly moderate the relationship between economic inequality and prosocial behavior. The second study differentiates between redistributive and non-redistributive charitable causes and examines how income inequality is associated with charitable giving to these two causes in China. Using synthesized data from the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS) and official data, this study shows that income inequality has no significant relationship with charitable giving to redistributive causes, but it has a negative association with charitable giving to non-redistributive causes. Of the four moderators, only education significantly moderates the relationship between income inequality and redistributive giving. The third study tests whether and how government social spending mediates the relationship between income inequality and charitable giving. Using the US county level panel data, this study finds there is no significant relationship between income inequality and government social spending as well as between government social spending and charitable giving. Thus, government social spending does not significantly mediate the relationship between income inequality and charitable giving. However, income inequality has a robustly and significantly negative relationship with charitable giving. In sum, this dissertation furthers our understanding of the relationship between economic inequality and prosocial behavior, especially charitable giving. Given the higher economic inequality facing many countries, it is a timely dissertation and has important practical implications.

Citizens trust in the police is important because it allows the police to maintain law and order, which is of great importance for the function of any society. Previous studies have found a correlation between quality of government and citizens level of trust in police. The aim of this study is to explore the importance of quality of government as an explanatory factor for trust in police and to compare it to other explanatory factors that have been shown to be of importance such as social trust, economic inequality and GDP per capita. It also compares individual factors in countries with low- as well as high levels of quality of government. This cross-country study uses publicly available data from both ESS round 9 and data from the Quality of government institute. The main findings show that social trust has a higher explanatory value than quality of government and the correlations between individual factors differ slightly in countries with high- and low quality of government.

This dissertation uses property values to investigate the economic effect of public expenditures for operations and capital improvements on place value. Given the increasing role of nonprofit services in augmenting those of cities and school districts, the dissertation research investigates whether nonprofit expenditures join those of cities and school districts as Tiebout commodities, thereby contributing to place value. Furthermore, the research examines whether those expenditures contribute to reducing the inequities in the distribution of property wealth. The conceptual framework for the dissertation is the Tiebout model and its various extensions. The model proposes that individuals have different preferences for public goods and services, and there are many jurisdictions that vary in the services provided. Consequently, individuals shop around for the community that best matches their preferences and locate in the one that maximizes their utility. If the model correctly predicts households' behavior, then the quality of public goods and services provided by a community will affect its desirability. The more attractive a community, the higher the demand for its properties, which results in higher property values. The dissertation research finds that city public capital spending positively impacts property values in two ways. Property values respond positively to (1) the announcement of capital investments (i.e., ongoing capital expenditures), and (2) the amenity created when capital projects become operational (i.e., when operating expenditures are combined with capital stock). The results also show that nonprofit capital stock and spending on operations affect property values differently depending on the nonprofit category. The findings further reveal that local public and nonprofit spending benefit owners of lower and medium valued properties more than owners of higher valued properties. This finding suggests that local government and nonprofit spending contribute to reducing inequities in the distribution of property wealth.

Given the background of rising economic inequalities, the topic has reentered the field of economic science. Yet the problem of how economic inequality is being mediated to the public is not discussed in economics at all, and hardly mentioned in communication studies. Through an analysis of recent empirical studies on the coverage of inequality in the media, we debate the role mass media play as information providers. Assessing the underlying assumptions and the methodological approaches guiding the respective empirical findings, we can highlight the merits of this body of work and identify open questions for further research. The last part of the article provides a discussion of (currently rather neglected) political economy theories that offer rich theoretical approaches to study media, power, and inequality.